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The Mommy Wars

RUSH: CNN Headline News yesterday afternoon. The show, Raising America with Kyra Phillips who, for those of you who care, she is I think the wife of John Roberts of Fox News. He used to be at CNN, and that's I think where they met and canoodled. I think they're married. Then he left and went to Fox, and they stayed married.

She's got her own show, Raising America with Kyra Phillips, and she had as a guest the author and comedienne, Carolyn Castiglia, and they're talking about tension between stay-at-home moms and working mothers. This is in some circles known as the mommy wars. And like I said, I've got two stories, and I promise you I'm gonna get to these. One from New York Magazine, one from the UK Daily Mail, and they're both about feminists who say the way for women to have it all is become mothers and stay home. Two different stories. So that's what this Castiglia babe is talking about with Kyra Phillips, the mommy wars. And Kyra Phillips says, "How many of you moms have a problem and are out there ripping each other, and why are you so judgmental? Come on, we all do it, let's admit it. What is it about this issue that makes mothers so defensive? Carolyn, what do you think?"

CASTIGLIA: I think the phrase "stay-at-home mom" is really played out at this point. You know, it sounds to me like something that Rush Limbaugh would say, like, "Stay-at-home, moms," like it's more of a command, you know what I mean?

RUSH: Jeeeeez. (laughing) Stay-at-home mom doesn't work because it sounds like something I would order a woman to do. So misunderstood am I, so misunderstood, it's unbelievable.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There's a phenomenon out there. It's not new, but it's being covered in the media like it's new. This has actually been going on for over ten years and maybe longer. Time flies. It seems to me that this has been going on since the mid-nineties. I remember chronicling for people more and more women who are dyed-in-the-wool feminists, they bought it hook, line, and sinker. They went to college, and they said they're gonna sign up for feminism and what that meant was, the hell with having a life other than one at home. They're gonna be out there and they're gonna be career focused and career oriented and they're gonna be just like men. They're not gonna have any pleasure from a relationship. They're not gonna subject themselves to emotional hurt at the hands of a man. They just go hell-bent for the job.

And then one of two things happened. They met a man and got married and had a child, and they fully expected to follow the feminist prescription: Have the child, farm it out to day care somehow, nanny, what have you, and go back to work. And then the others didn't find a man, didn't get married, and the biological time bomb started ticking. And as they approached 40 they began to think that they were missing a lot of stuff in life. They didn't have a relationship, they didn't have a man, and they didn't have a child. And the biological time bomb, theoretically hit 40 and that's when it becomes dangerous to have children, and so they started checking out.

And in both instances, these dyed-in-the-wool feminists who bought everything the feminazis had told them, after going home and doing maternity leave, more and more of them wanted to stay home. They didn't want to go back to work, and the entire foundation of what the feminists were trying to do was blown to smithereens. And it kept happening with greater frequency, and it kept being reported here and there, but not in a massive kind of way, but enough that I noticed it because I was looking for it. You could find these stories.

Now, folks, it has become the norm, and now there are things called the mommy wars where more and more women -- liberal, feminist women -- are deciding that the way to really have it all is to get married, have a child, and stay home and raise the kid. And the feminazis are beside themselves. This is not how was it supposed to happen. This was not how it was supposed to work. So now the mommy wars have erupted and the feminists are upset at more and more women for deciding to let down the sisterhood, so to speak.

But increasingly, by definition here, the numbers of women who are betraying feminism are liberal women, and they are discovering what you and I have always known. It's kind of funny. All these liberal women, and some liberal guys if they've got the guts to say so, act like they've come across some brand-new discovery: becoming a mother and actually staying home and raising the child. And they're writing articles about it. I got two of them right here, as though it's a new thing, it's never been done before.

The feminists, the liberal ego is such that only they have the answers to everything, and only they discover new things. Only they encounter new truths. And to them, I'm not kidding you, you read these stories, to them these newly arrived liberal women who are eschewing feminism, having babies and wanting to stay home and being perfectly fulfilled and happy think they've come across something brand-new that's never been done before and they're writing stories about it. It's the most amazing thing to come across these. You have to read the right liberal publications to run into these stories. But it's hilarious. It's only been the way of the world since the beginning of time. But they think they've encountered something brand-new and revolutionary, and such is their hubris and ego.

Now, here's the story from New York Magazine about this. It's called, "The Retro Wife. Feminists Who Say They're Having It All -- By Choosing To Stay Home," and I'm telling you:

By definition, in New York Magazine or any other mainstream media publication, a feminist cannot be a conservative woman. In fact, conservative women are not allowed to call themselves feminists. Just like if you happen to be pro-choice but you choose life, you're not allowed to be pro-choice, 'cause pro-choice doesn't mean choosing. Pro-choice means pro-abortion. So if you happen to be pro-choice but say, "I choose life," they will not let you in the club.

The same thing here: A conservative woman will never be allowed to be a feminist. So when the headline says, "The Retro Wife. Feminists Who Say They're Having It All -- By Choosing To Stay Home," it's liberal Democrats. "When Kelly Makino was a little girl, she loved to go orienteering..." Have you ever heard of that word? (interruption) Do you know what orienteering is? (interruption) Oh, HR knows what it is. Snerdley didn't know what it is. I'd never heard of it either. Here's how it's described:

"[O]rienteering -- to explore the wilderness ... finding her way back with a compass and a map," and, "When Kelly Makino was a little girl, she loved to go orienteering..." You orient yourself. You learn how to get where you are and how to get back, in case you're with a man who refuses to stop and ask for directions. That's where it has its roots. Men refuse to ask for directions; women have to find out. So it's called " orienteering." Of course you wouldn't use a smartphone for this. No way. Because men like smartphones.

You go out there with a compass and a sextant and who the hell knows what else. This is about Kelly Makino. "[S]he loved to go orienteering -- to explore the wilderness near her rural Pennsylvania home, finding her way back with a compass and a map -- and the future she imagined for herself was equally adventuresome. Until she was about 16, she wanted to be a CIA operative, a spy, she says, 'like La Femme Nikita.'

"She put herself through college at Georgia State working in bars and slinging burgers, planning that with her degree in social work, she would move abroad, to India or Africa, to do humanitarian work for a couple of years. Her husband would be nerdy-hip, and they'd settle down someplace like Williamsburg," in New York City, not Colonial Williamsburg. "[W]hen she eventually had children, she would continue working full time, like her mother did, moving up the nonprofit ladder to finally 'run a United Way chapter or be the CEO.'"

That is how she imagined her future. "Now Kelly is 33, and if dreams were winds, you might say that hers have shifted. She believes that every household needs one primary caretaker, that women are, broadly speaking, better at that job than men, and that no amount of professional success could possibly console her if she felt her two young children," ages five and four, "were not being looked after the right way." Classic, folks. This is classic.

This is what has been happening maybe since further back than the mid-nineties. This is a story of a young woman. At 16, she had her feminist dream all mapped out, and it blew up when confronted by reality. "The maternal instinct is a real thing, Kelly argues: Girls play with dolls from childhood, so 'women are raised from the get-go to raise children successfully. When we are moms, we have a better toolbox.' Women, she believes, are conditioned to be more patient with children..."

Now mind you, folks, the way to read this is that to her, this is -- and I'm not being insulting. This is instructive. To this woman... I wish I hadn't even mentioned her name because now people are going to tell her about it. She's gonna be told the wrong things about what I'm saying. But my point is, she's just discovering this. She thinks that she's on to something revolutionary, that women are nurturers, that women should be the primary person in the household raising the child.

This is an age-old feminist who dreamed of running around Africa and places helping the poor with the United Way, working for nonprofits. She has been confronted by reality, but she thinks it's something brand-new. "Women [are] better multitaskers, to be more tolerant of the quotidian grind of playdates and temper tantrums; 'women,' she says, 'keep it together better than guys do.' So last summer, when her husband, Alvin, a management consultant, took a new position requiring more travel, she made a decision.

"They would live off his low-six-figure income, and she would quit her job running a program for at-risk kids in a public school to stay home full time. ... Kelly calls herself 'a flaming liberal' and a feminist, too. 'I want my daughter to be able to do anything she wants,' she says. 'But I also want to say, "Have a career that you can walk away from at the drop of a hat,"'" and this is another point that I've always made. Women have had all the flexibility in careers that men have not had.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So some women -- conservative, traditional, whatever you want to call 'em -- have always known, have always instinctively said, "I don't want to be a man. I want to marry one." They stayed home, raised the kids, they're fulfilled and they're utterly happy. Those women were ripped to shreds by feminists and they were made to feel guilty, and they were said to be traitors. And now all of these admittedly flaming liberal women are discovering nature and instinct and think they're onto something new. It's heartwarming to see it happen. It's amusing at the same time.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look, I'm not gonna spend a whole bunch more time on these stories of feminist women discovering motherhood and thinking they've found something new and wanting to stay home. Look, the point of it is, folks, is that there's hope, culturally there is hope. There are just certain things that are nature, that are instinctive in human beings. And the left has spent God knows how much time and energy trying to alter basic human nature. In fact, it was one of the primary purposes or objectives of feminism. And while they can screw up a generation or two, things eventually do self-correct, and that is happening here. I think it bodes well in terms of potential that other things that liberals have tried to corrupt can eventually right themselves.

It's not a total cure by any means, and it's just a little speck, but to me it's important because this whole notion of trying to reorient women and the way they live their lives has been a primary objective of liberals since the late sixties and even way back before then. The late sixties is just the current iteration of it, the current era. And it's failing, it's bombing out, and it's liberal women who are admitting it has. They're not admitting it that, in those words, but by virtue of their behavior and their expressed preferences, they are. So it's ultimately another opportunity for us to say that we know what we're talking about and that we're right. There's no reason for any of us to be defensive or embarrassed about what we believe.

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RUSH: To Cincinnati. Hi, Carolyn. I'm glad you called. It's great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. It's great to talk to you. Actually, while I was on hold it was interesting 'cause you started talking about football and not hitting with your head, and I started to think about the rules they have for my kids in school even without being in Maryland. They don't want you to be mean to anybody and they don't want you to pass out invitations and hurt somebody's feelings, and it's sort of this emasculation of our society as a hole.

RUSH: It really is. It's a great way to describe it.

CALLER: And then the government is this paternal figure that's going to shield you from being hurt, and you're gonna have a bunch of emotional cripples as adults, because you weren't allowed to be hurt, you weren't ever allowed to lose. You had to get a trophy every time. I mean, it's really scary.

RUSH: I think it's already manifesting itself. I think it's a contributing factor to the unemployment rate, in addition to the economy. I think there are people that are totally unequipped for what life is really like in the every day hustle and bustle world.

CALLER: The reason I called originally was actually talking about the fact that this "you can have it all" feminist approach is a fraud, and, you know, I've always been conservative as long as I can remember. I can remember when President Carter won and I was ten years old and I was horrified.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: So my view was never that I was some rabid feminist. When I found out I was gonna have twins, my husband and I talked about it, I quit my job, and I'm an attorney, but just the cost of things, wanting to send their children to parochial school. I am working part time, and you know, when my kids don't feel good and I'm thinking about missing work, and all the choices that you have to make, I mean it is heartbreaking. I wish I could stay home. And the sad thing is that I think a lot of women are starting to realize that they'd rather stay home, and our economy is gonna be in such a mess with costs associated with Obamacare, higher taxes, that there's gonna be a lot more women that are forced to get back into the workplace.

RUSH: Well, you may have a point on that. Since you brought this back up, grab sound bite number five. This is the author of this New Yorker piece, Lisa Miller. She's on with Charlie Rose here, who's doing his level best to sound like a good feminist in this interview. It's funny. But I want you to listen to her define feminism. Feminism today is a woman staying home with her children. That's feminism. Oh, yeah, it's always been that, is what the point is. Gayle King said, "Lisa, in your article 'The Feminist Housewife' you focus on a woman who has a job and she decided we're going to take less money but I'm going to stay home. The house may be a mess, everything may not go perfectly, but this is the decision I've made. What has been the response you’ve been getting to the article?"

MILLER: It's been really crazy. And the main thrust of it is, you know, who is a feminist? Is Kelly Makino actually a feminist because she decides to stay home with her family and bake cakes and teach her kids manners and values and read to them? Or do you have to be, you know, in the workplace striving hard to be a feminist? And, you know, I was looking at the comments yesterday, and one of them said, you know, "I'm writing appellate brief, and I'm waiting for my three children to come home" and, you know, describing this overmuch full life. She was calling herself a real feminist. So, I mean, my opinion is we -- we shouldn't be pointing fingers.

RUSH: Shouldn't be pointing fingers? The feminist movement has been doing nothing but pointing fingers ever since I can remember, and they've been pointing fingers at stay-at-home moms who have been laughed at, impugned, and made fun of as homeschoolers and as crazy, wacko Christian babes, and any other insult that could be leveled. Now all of a sudden it's really fulfilling to stay home and raise a child than have a job. That's the new feminism. We should stop pointing fingers. Now, listen, this is Joanna Coles, and she is the editor-in-chief at Cosmo, and she wants to weigh in on this.

COLES: Feminism is really about having choices and understanding, when you make those choices, what the repercussions and what the consequences of the choices are. So the character in your story is sort of fascinating on what one's not certain about -- and you might have more insight because you spent time with her -- is whether or not she knows that in giving up her job, it's gonna be harder for her to get back on track if she decides that she wants to. And I think the issue is there's so much judgment.

RUSH: So much judgment? Too much judgment of women's choices? Who've been judging women for 40 years if it hasn't been Cosmo? But feminism is about having choices and understanding that there are repercussions. That's not feminism. It's called maturity. For crying out loud. It's called life. It's called accepting responsibility.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Charlie Rose. And listen to Charlie. He had to wrap up the interview with the women on his show today with Gayle King, and they were talking about the new feminism. Here's what Charlie Rose said that men have to do.

ROSE: It is incumbent on men to appreciate more and to do more and have the same responsibilities that women do.

RUSH: I just sit here, my mouth just falls open. Will you play that again? It is up to men to understand more, to do more, to explain more, to say more, to feel more, to touch more, to be more, to be fully respected and understood so that women will go to bed with us, is what he means.

ROSE: It is incumbent on men to appreciate more and to do more and have the same responsibilities that women do.

RUSH: Appreciate more and to do more and understand the absolute hell women's lives are, because if we don't, we'll never get 'em in the sack. Yes, dear, yes dear, yes dear, yes dear, can we go to bed now?